Sonic is the bomb, the first is still my fav too, though 2 is close. Something about the level design, gameplay flow, the epic music, and it definitely ruled when I was a kid too. My fav 2D platformer.

Punch Out is cool, love the theme song and uts covers too. Speaking of boxing, I love the anime/manga Hajime no Ippo

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is a 1995 platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. A prequel to the Mario franchise, the game casts players as Yoshi as he escorts Baby Mario through nearly 50 levels in order to reunite him with his brother Luigi, who had been kidnapped by Baby Bowser's minions. Yoshi runs and jumps to reach the end of the level while solving puzzles and collecting items. In a style new to the series, the game has a hand-drawn aesthetic and is the first to have Yoshi as its main character. The game introduces his signature abilities to flutter jump, produce eggs from swallowed enemies, and transform into vehicles.The game's hand-drawn aesthetic—a style new to the series—descends from producer and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto's distaste for the computer pre-rendered graphics of the game's contemporary Donkey Kong Country. Yoshi's Island was released in Japan in August 5, 1995, and worldwide two months later. Some of its special effects were powered by a new Super FX2 microchip. The game was rereleased for the Game Boy Advance with few changes in 2002 under the title Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3. Nintendo later released this version via the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U Virtual Console.

It's certainly the most unique use of the FX chip. I've developed a certain fondness for all of the Yoshi games because my son is all about Yoshi. They're all really easy to beat. You can knock them out in a couple hours without breaking a sweat, but if you want to get EVERYTHING- earn all 100 points on every stage- they're incredibly challenging.

The graphics were designed in a passive-aggressive fit by Shigeru Miyamoto. Apparently Nintendo marketing wanted graphics that looked more liked Donkey Kong Country. Miyamoto reacted by going the opposite direction and making the game look ultra cartoony.

You may remember Contra III: Alien Wars was bumped up a few places on the list after I caught a possible mistake on my own list. So here is what happened. I actually compiled my list just after the poll ended, way back when it was originally going to be a SNES list. Easy for me as there is a shelf in my house where all my SNES games have stayed since the 90s ( excluding Earthbound, Lethal Enforcers and Mario Paint, all which came in oversized boxes and are instead in the closet. ) So, generating a list of my favorite games should have been easy, right? Except that I realized the shelf had a gap where a game was missing. Then it all came back to me. way back in 97 or 98, a friend had borrowed the game. A friend who had moved away years ago. So that was long gone. After taking stock of the remaining games, I was pretty damn sure the missing game was a Contra game. To make sure that a Contra game even came out on the SNES and not one of the other systems, I found a website that listed every SNES game ever made, along with screen grabs of each game. It listed one for the SNES called Super Contra, and it's screen grabs were of the game I remembered. So that was what I wrote on my list.

However, when I saw the entry for Contra III: Alien Wars and the Youtube video was the game I remembered from the SNES, I began to realize I may have made a mistake. ( I have since found out that Super Contra was the name import distributors gave to the Japanese version of the game, which came in a box that had no English lettering. Apparently it was released in Japan earlier than in the USA, and therefore the Japanese game ended up on American shelves of some stores for those willing to pay extra for import games that were not in English. Super Contra was either a poor translation of the Japanese title, or the working title for the impending American release, or just something the distributor made up. Contra III actually makes little sense as it is at least the fourth game in the Contra series if you count the one made for Gameboy. ) According to Wikipedia, only one Contra game had been released for the SNES.

But I still wanted to be 100% sure that there were not two different Contra games. So I asked around to see if someone knew how to contact my missing friend. Maybe he would remember the title, or if I was very lucky, still had the game somewhere. I lucked out. Another of my old friends had just recently reconnected with him on Facebook. I found out that after 9-11, he decided to leave NYC, move out to Hollywood and do what he always wanted to do, get a job in showbusiness. He said he was able to get a few odd jobs working on a few movie sets, and even got some work playing extras in a couple of films. But he could not find any real work, and by 2009 was broke. He then moved to Georgia where most of his family had moved to and has been there since. As for the game. He remembered playing it, then putting it with the rest of his games. When he moved to Hollywood, his wife boxed all of his games and consoles in he same box. The box went to Hollywood with him where it was never opened, ended up with a lot of the rest of his stuff in a storage locker, and some of the contents of that locker were later shipped to Georgia, while some other boxes were abandoned. He had no idea what he still had from 2001, or if my game even ended up packed with his.

Then the next day I got word that he had checked his attic, found his box with video games, said he still had the Contra game, and confirmed the name was Contra III: Alien Wars. He also asked for my current address so he could mail it back. And today I got it. It took less than 24 hours to get here, while the Amazon items I ordered Cyber Monday are still in transit. Best of all, he kept it in it's original box...

....and it still has all it's original contents....

except for the dust caked on it, it still looks as good as the day I bought it. And I was so sure the game was gone forever. I never expected to get it back, let alone still in mint condition. Now if only my damn controllers still worked.

Chrono Trigger is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1995. Chrono Trigger's development team included three designers that Square dubbed the "Dream Team": Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Square's Final Fantasy series; Yuji Horii, a freelance designer and creator of Enix's popular Dragon Quest series; and Akira Toriyama, a manga artist famed for his work with Dragon Quest and Dragon Ball. Kazuhiko Aoki produced the game, Masato Kato wrote most of the plot, while composer Yasunori Mitsuda scored most of the game before falling ill and deferring the remaining tracks to Final Fantasy series composer Nobuo Uematsu. The game's story follows a group of adventurers who travel through time to prevent a global catastrophe.

Chrono Trigger takes place in a world familiar to Earth, with eras such as the prehistoric age, in which primitive humans and dinosaurs share the earth; the Middle Ages, replete with knights, monsters, and magic; and the post-apocalyptic future, where destitute humans and sentient robots struggle to survive. The characters frequently travel through time to obtain allies, gather equipment, and learn information to help them in their quest. The party also gains access to the End of Time, which serves as a hub to travel back to other time periods. The party eventually acquires a time-machine vehicle known as the Wings of Time, nicknamed the Epoch. The vehicle is capable of time travel between any time period without first having to travel to the End of Time.

I didn't play this game on Super Nintendo. My brother played it briefly on an emulator in 1998, but I never got into it until 2010 when I picked up the Nintendo DS. I remember being called for jury duty in 2010 and playing this game to pass the long hours waiting for everything to be resolved. It was a great game, one of the best RPGs. I liked the multiple endings, but I wish there had been a way to replay them after unlocking. I didn't actually put it on my list though, since I never played it for Super Nintendo.

Chrono Trigger is definitely among the SNES finest RPGs. It has all sorts of interesting mechanics and the time travel aspect allows for some great settings. I don't think Toriyama ever worked with Square since, which is a shame, since they seem to go well together.